File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0102, message 69


Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 22:06:47 -0500
From: David Jefferess <jefferdm-AT-mcmaster.ca>
Subject: Re: World Vision/CCF etc


Hello
I've given a paper on World Vison Canada and am reworking it for submission to a
journal. I can send it to you if you wish.

Main concerns:
A) the organization does NOT sponsor children. this is purely a marketing
tactic.
B) use "Canadian" concepts as normative despite their possibly being
inappropriate elsewhere, for cultural, economic or climactic reasons. ie the
idea of the house, the family, formal education.
C) dehistoricize poverty (ie 1984 Ethiopia famine was a natural disaster - no
mention of war, or the fact that cold war politics and western arms
sales/interests had anything to do with it) another example is guatemala.
poverty is natural there... and has nothing to do with the fact canadian
industries are exploiting labour there.
D) appeal not to people in developing countries, but reactions of usally white
Canadians who are heartbroken by what they see... only legitimate if seen
through Canaidan eyes.
etc etc... I can go on and on and on... a favourite rant that i have is about
how Canadian identity in many ways is built upon the myth of benovolence which
requires a "hopeless" (quoting Wolrd Vision here) non-white other.

David

Rebecca Fenton wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Does anyone have anything to say about the neocolonialism of World Vision,
> Christian Childrens Fund and other relief agencies?  Or can you direct me to
> any websites?
>
> Just inquiring - it's a personal interest more than scholarly research.
>
> Rebecca
>
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